Disclaimer: This is a rant post. Don’t read this as me being unhappy or ungrateful, but rather as me being in a place where I am completely dependent upon the grace of God!
This last season of life has been one of the craziest seasons of life and ministry for my family. Not only has it been crazy but it has also been incredibly challenging and life-giving. While that seems like an oxy-moron it’s actually when you push yourself to rely fully on the presence of God that you find a strange sense of peace amidst the crazy. Let me just bullet point what the last season of life has looked like for me:
- Got pregnant with our third child
- Prayed through a new opportunity in Austin
- Decided it was God’s will to join the mission at The Fellowship Round Rock
- Faithfully transition the youth ministry I’d spent four years shepherding
- Sold our Plano home
- Moved into a friends place while house-hunting
- Started new youth ministry role (building relationships & programming)
- Bought a house and moved in…boxes, boxes, boxes
- Started Summer in Youth Ministry
- Summer Camp planning & execution
- Summer College Interns
- Mission Trip to Dominican Republic
- Lot’s of awesome weekly relational ministry & programming
- Still learning the people, programs, and processes of a new church
- Found out our unborn baby will have clubbed feet or joint disorder
- Started learning how to run multi-site youth ministry
- Started recruiting new Small Group leaders & slightly altered SG model
- Launched Small Groups
- Wife went into pre-term labor…doctors got it stopped.
- Transitioned youth pastors at our multi-site
- STILL meeting new people and building relationships at a church of around 2k
- Planned and executed Fall Retreat
- Wife went back to hospital with pre-term labor during Fall Retreat…stopped again
- Attended Middle School Ministry Campference…AWESOME!
- Keying in on leader development and care
- New College worship leader
- New multi-site youth minister
- Small Group Leaders
- All of this plus the weekly Wednesday & Sunday routine
Needless to say, it’s been quite a ride! Despite the busyness, the Lord has been so gracious and kind. He has been my strength and the fact that things are going really well is testimony to His provision and plan. There have been low times, but He has seen me through. I’m tired, but He is my source of strength. Today, I hold onto the following passage. I hope it comforts you if the mountain ahead seems impassable.
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.– Psalm 40:28-31
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David Hanson: Texas native, Texas Tech Red Raider, M.Div. at Truett Seminary, husband to Ashley, father to Ava & Ben, Student Pastor at The Fellowship in Round Rock, Tx, table tennis (ping-pong) extraordinaire, addicted to coffee. For anything else…you’ll just have to ask.
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